Articles on Primal Therapy, psychogenesis, causes of psychological traumas, brain development, psychotherapies, neuropsychology, neuropsychotherapy. Discussions about causes of anxiety, depression, psychosis, consequences of the birth trauma and life before birth.

Monday, November 14, 2016

It Is Not Only Food that We Ingest

Anything that goes into a carrying mother’s system will affect the baby. Medication, above all. And we may not be aware of it, but the biochemicals processing anxiety and depression too. The mother and fetus are in many ways one system. The mother is depressed and so is the baby; he will be largely more lifeless than normals. Heavy repression is going on, which diminishes energy levels; which is also very true in anxiety where energy levels are increased. The baby may be born hyperactive and soon may not be able to sit still or concentrate early in life.

Here is a study that throws light on the problem. (Science Daily sept 18, 2016, Depression in Pregnancy, see https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2016/09/160928101100.htm) This study maintains that depression can reduce the enzyme in the placenta that breaks down stress hormones in the fetus which then produces epigenetic changes when the baby is stressed. The DNA remains the same but how and when it is expressed changes. Here may be the beginning of mental health problems in the baby. It may look like inherited depression, but no. The carrying mother’s physical state has much to do with it. Experience changes how genetics is carried out. And that too often includes the medications the mother takes which alters the baby”s system. An adult dose for a newborn may be overwhelming and life-threatening. Any drug can produce major biologic changes in the baby. We need to be aware of that. A baby is not an adult. And too many mothers take a couple of pills in the morning without thinking of the lifelong consequences on the offspring. “It is just a mild painkiller,” we rationalize but it is not mild for the baby. These pills may aid serious repression. It can set up a lifelong prototype of being “down” in the baby. As the pills inside of him re-set a new his natural state: repression. He is sent to a doctor in his childhood. He is asked whether he has taken any drugs? “No” he says, unaware of the embedded memory of drugs that his mother and he took together when he was a fetus that set up a prototype.

In one sense, the depressive mother’s “down” tendency can become part of the child’s inheritance and it becomes very difficult to separate out what contributes to abnormality. Is it really experience or pure genetics. I vote for genetics given expression by experience. Is it inherited? We have to understand inheritance to know what we mean. Are we inheriting pure genetics (blue eyes) or are we inheriting a hyperactive system which may be a combination of the two. Some of the recent research shows a wide discrepancy between actual age and methylation age (an accumulation of life’s traumas). The latter is far more accurate estimate for our longevity. It makes sense that trauma wreaks havoc on our biologic system and curtails its endurance.

It seems now by carefully studying methylation age (the age of accumulated traumas) we are measuring one’s longevity. It is something we have noted for decades; that early life lack of love, neglect and lack of touch shorten our life span. They certainly point to the build-up of serious illness. Most serious scientific papers urge the search for what factors we can add to prolong good health. My vote is for our therapy because when we lower body temperature on a long term basis for example, we extend life. I recently quoted a study on body temp that seems to confirm this point. Why? Because we reduce the constant work of the body, save energy so that system is more relaxed and healthy. Early life is critical to how long we live and if we are to inherit terrible afflictions. Love the child at age one and prevent illness at age fifty. Not a bad bargain.

10 comments:

To me the information about primaltherapy come too late. I am already a mother of five children. I never took any medications when I was expecting my children But I was not alive. I have never lived. I was severely depressed. Sometimes I wanted to jump in front of the subway when my kids were in my stomach.

Love is so vital, vital to feel, I did not.

I would be able to blow up the entire world, or? YesI would liketo, I do not have no words for what I feel.I wished this had not happened, I do not want this done!

All I should have known, I know now. But I can not blame myself anymore. I'm not guilty! I have not known about it, how could I?

My children has needed my love. My hands patted my stomach when I was pregnant so they could feel the touching of me. They needed to feel wanted.

My children were just. Just like me, I was just. Without love and without being wanted.

Love is the foundation of life. My children! I have much to restore now.

Now they would fit nicely with a primal center here in Sweden.

My knowledge that I have now, by myself is absolutely necessary. I've known that I had to make my own therapy before I can help others.

It is imperative that you have know about your feelings first.My feelings have not been something to play with. I have not been played with them. I have been dangerous, both to myself and others.

Now I feel that I can be useful. I want to work as a therapist. Nothing would make me happier in my life. I have great respect for my feelings. I have great respect for people who feel bad. I recognize myself in them.

So love is life saving. You can not live without love. Love is a must, otherwise you have a long and painful life ahead of you.

Against yourself, in that part of the brain you suffer there is no guilt!

To ours children we will always be guilty what so ever! But the blame on ourself does not exist more than others suffer for what we did to them. it at the time we our self just suffers. What I am saying is our children will always feel what we did to them as anyone knows who undergoing primal therapy, and it will hurt as much as it did when we ourself shut of from ours feelings. In me it is very painful. So no matter how I twist and turn the question it's painful to me.

It's all about our brain, in which part of it we are and how much we feel of the communication in it. it at the time the question of guilty is asked!

Against ourself for what we suffers, for what others done us there is no guilt, what so ever, even though it may be a matter of our own therapy, "What have I done" as an question to connect to memory.

Hi Frank. My friend's parents blamed her for everything, and punished her accordingly. When she left home, her parents blamed her sister for everything.Now my friend is extremely sensitive to criticism even when it is purely scientific and not directed at her personally. She was very interested in Primal Healing until she reached a point where Art was talking about the mother and the fetus. At that point she felt intense hatred and slammed the book shut and never read it again. There is nothing anyone can do for her other than offer some friendship until she is gone. I have given the book to another friend.

Hi Art. I am not sure if you responded to my question on parasympaths coz I can't remember where I posted it.

In case you were wondering, I haven't given up. Still saving money... just need to complete three things so that I can do the therapy properly. I know you don't go on forever. I know years have gone by but I think I'm doing the right thing because I don't have much faith in therapy via Skype. I need to be in the US. Skype might work for others but not for me.

This is also a matter of that primal therapy would have been established in Sweden since the seventy century?

When we ourselves have no foresight in substance, we are at the mercy of others and may become prey to the will of others, other people's capriciousness, others' lies and above all the science as are lost!

Who has the right to questioned a professional? Appointed through fanfare and pageantry who then turns out to be far from what the knowledge of science proving to be, and you will be vilified and threatened to reveal it. This is what we are dealing with in order to achieve what science tells us about. Do not forget Copernicus, Newton and many many others.

Yes, we need a brain that is capable of tilting at windmills, but we all know what happens when the wind calms down, our luck!

Professionals of this variety is not unusual today when life is at stake for what the compensation is of the matter, it more than to be able to admit his ignorance. I guess that's what we all suffers, for the requirements to be successful and not what love to each other tells of!

When I sing the song "oh my darling I love you and I always will" and I produce it, that is one thing, but when I sing the song and feels it, that is a complete different thing, then my tears flowing down my cheeks and my memories are recalled, memories of need and loneliness! You know, that is me and what I belongs to, my need.

I would have been able to become really sick if I had not found ways to rushing upon! To have demand me to be someone I am not, it has been my akillis heel impossible to access as it followed me as a threat into every room of my life!

Now I know why no one has been able to help me in my therapy! I have been far too vulnerable, too sensitive to open up to my self around others. It has even been impossible alone with myself. It would have required someone who really knew what it is to be as vulnerable as I was, and there has not been any, what soever during my struggle against to feel. It's not anyone's fault, but they have certainly not seen me. But now I'm here. after all I been plagued around other! Always!

Yes it's anyone's fault, those who claim to know about emotions and what to do. And what do they do? Scary!

Review of "Beyond Belief"

This thought-provoking and important book shows how people are drawn toward dangerous beliefs.

“Belief can manifest itself in world-changing ways—and did, in some of history’s ugliest moments, from the rise of Adolf Hitler to the Jonestown mass suicide in 1979. Arthur Janov, a renowned psychologist who penned The Primal Scream, fearlessly tackles the subject of why and how strong believers willingly embrace even the most deranged leaders.

Beyond Belief begins with a lucid explanation of belief systems that, writes Janov, “are maps, something to help us navigate through life more effectively.” While belief systems are not presented as inherently bad, the author concentrates not just on why people adopt belief systems, but why “alienated individuals” in particular seek out “belief systems on the fringes.” The result is a book that is both illuminating and sobering. It explores, for example, how a strongly-held belief can lead radical Islamist jihadists to murder others in suicide acts. Janov writes, “I believe if people had more love in this life, they would not be so anxious to end it in favor of some imaginary existence.”

One of the most compelling aspects of Beyond Belief is the author’s liberal use of case studies, most of which are related in the first person by individuals whose lives were dramatically affected by their involvement in cults. These stories offer an exceptional perspective on the manner in which belief systems can take hold and shape one’s experiences. Joan’s tale, for instance, both engaging and disturbing, describes what it was like to join the Hare Krishnas. Even though she left the sect, observing that participants “are stunted in spiritual awareness,” Joan considers returning someday because “there’s a certain protection there.”

Janov’s great insight into cultish leaders is particularly interesting; he believes such people have had childhoods in which they were “rejected and unloved,” because “only unloved people want to become the wise man or woman (although it is usually male) imparting words of wisdom to others.” This is just one reason why Beyond Belief is such a thought-provoking, important book.”

Barry Silverstein, Freelance Writer

Quotes for "Life Before Birth"

“Life Before Birth is a thrilling journey of discovery, a real joy to read. Janov writes like no one else on the human mind—engaging, brilliant, passionate, and honest.

He is the best writer today on what makes us human—he shows us how the mind works, how it goes wrong, and how to put it right . . . He presents a brand-new approach to dealing with depression, emotional pain, anxiety, and addiction.”

Paul Thompson, PhD, Professor of Neurology, UCLA School of Medicine

Art Janov, one of the pioneers of fetal and early infant experiences and future mental health issues, offers a robust vision of how the earliest traumas of life can percolate through the brains, minds and lives of individuals. He focuses on both the shifting tides of brain emotional systems and the life-long consequences that can result, as well as the novel interventions, and clinical understanding, that need to be implemented in order to bring about the brain-mind changes that can restore affective equanimity. The transitions from feelings of persistent affective turmoil to psychological wholeness, requires both an understanding of the brain changes and a therapist that can work with the affective mind at primary-process levels. Life Before Birth, is a manifesto that provides a robust argument for increasing attention to the neuro-mental lives of fetuses and infants, and the widespread ramifications on mental health if we do not. Without an accurate developmental history of troubled minds, coordinated with a recognition of the primal emotional powers of the lowest ancestral regions of the human brain, therapists will be lost in their attempt to restore psychological balance.

Jaak Panksepp, Ph.D.

Bailey Endowed Chair of Animal Well Being Science

Washington State University

Dr. Janov’s essential insight—that our earliest experiences strongly influence later well being—is no longer in doubt. Thanks to advances in neuroscience, immunology, and epigenetics, we can now see some of the mechanisms of action at the heart of these developmental processes. His long-held belief that the brain, human development, and psychological well being need to studied in the context of evolution—from the brainstem up—now lies at the heart of the integration of neuroscience and psychotherapy.

Grounded in these two principles, Dr. Janov continues to explore the lifelong impact of prenatal, birth, and early experiences on our brains and minds. Simultaneously “old school” and revolutionary, he synthesizes traditional psychodynamic theories with cutting-edge science while consistently highlighting the limitations of a strict, “top-down” talking cure. Whether or not you agree with his philosophical assumptions, therapeutic practices, or theoretical conclusions, I promise you an interesting and thought-provoking journey.

Lou Cozolino, PsyD, Professor of Psychology, Pepperdine University

In Life Before Birth Dr. Arthur Janov illuminates the sources of much that happens during life after birth. Lucidly, the pioneer of primal therapy provides the scientific rationale for treatments that take us through our original, non-verbal memories—to essential depths of experience that the superficial cognitive-behavioral modalities currently in fashion cannot possibly touch, let alone transform.

Gabor Maté MD, author of In The Realm of Hungry Ghosts: Close Encounters With Addiction

An expansive analysis! This book attempts to explain the impact of critical developmental windows in the past, implores us to improve the lives of pregnant women in the present, and has implications for understanding our children, ourselves, and our collective future. I’m not sure whether primal therapy works or not, but it certainly deserves systematic testing in well-designed, assessor-blinded, randomized controlled clinical trials.

A baby's brain grows more while in the womb than at any time in a child's life. Life Before Birth: The Hidden Script That Rules Our Lives is a valuable guide to creating healthier babies and offers insight into healing our early primal wounds. Dr. Janov integrates the most recent scientific research about prenatal development with the psychobiological reality that these early experiences do cast a long shadow over our entire lifespan. With a wealth of experience and a history of successful psychotherapeutic treatment, Dr. Janov is well positioned to speak with clarity and precision on a topic that remains critically important.

Dr. Janov has crafted a compelling and prophetic opus that could rightly dictate

PhD thesis topics for decades to come. Devoid of any "New Age" pseudoscience,

this work never strays from scientific orthodoxy and yet is perfectly accessible and

downright fascinating to any lay person interested in the mysteries of the human psyche."

Dr. Bernard Park, MD, MPH

His new book “Life Before Birth: The Hidden Script that Rules Our Lives” shows that primal therapy, the lower-brain therapeutic method popularized in the 1970’s international bestseller “Primal Scream” and his early work with John Lennon, may help alleviate depression and anxiety disorders, normalize blood pressure and serotonin levels, and improve the functioning of the immune system.

One of the book’s most intriguing theories is that fetal imprinting, an evolutionary strategy to prepare children to cope with life, establishes a permanent set-point in a child's physiology. Baby's born to mothers highly anxious during pregnancy, whether from war, natural disasters, failed marriages, or other stressful life conditions, may thus be prone to mental illness and brain dysfunction later in life. Early traumatic events such as low oxygen at birth, painkillers and antidepressants administered to the mother during pregnancy, poor maternal nutrition, and a lack of parental affection in the first years of life may compound the effect.

In making the case for a brand-new, unified field theory of psychotherapy, Dr. Janov weaves together the evolutionary theories of Jean Baptiste Larmarck, the fetal development studies of Vivette Glover and K.J.S. Anand, and fascinating new research by the psychiatrist Elissa Epel suggesting that telomeres—a region of repetitive DNA critical in predicting life expectancy—may be significantly altered during pregnancy.

After explaining how hormonal and neurologic processes in the womb provide a blueprint for later mental illness and disease, Dr. Janov charts a revolutionary new course for psychotherapy. He provides a sharp critique of cognitive behavioral therapy, psychoanalysis, and other popular “talk therapy” models for treating addiction and mental illness, which he argues do not reach the limbic system and brainstem, where the effects of early trauma are registered in the nervous system.

“Life Before Birth: The Hidden Script that Rules Our Lives” is scheduled to be published by NTI Upstream in October 2011, and has tremendous implications for the future of modern psychology, pediatrics, pregnancy, and women’s health.

Editor

Legacy Program

Learn Primal theory and clinical practice: the Legacy Program is now available!

Beyond Belief

Released in May 2016!

Dr. Arthur Janov examines the power of beliefs and how they are used as a mechanism for dealing with early trauma that goes as far back as birth. Beliefs are a way to rationalize with pain rooted deep in the unconscious, and reveal that love is a biological need. Dr. Janov applies engrossing case studies and his many years of experience to bring the reader one step closer to understanding human behavior, and how pain can become converted into an idea.

Lecture videos about Primal Therapy

Life Before Birth

Life Before Birth was 1st Runner-up of the 2012 Eric Hoffer Book Award in the Health category:

"This examines behavioral markers before adolescence and childhood, all the way back to gestation. Presenting case studies and trenchant research, Janov posits that much of the adult maladies affecting so many, such as anxiety, addiction, and ADHD, have roots in fetal biochemistry. His analysis offers hope for those concerned about passing on many perceive as hereditary conditions that might actually be prevented with a healthy lifestyle before and during pregnancy. Janov breaks down complex scientific and health-related ideas into accessible, relatable language. Life Before Birth provides a unique guidebook for parents-to-be and an interesting set of ideas for everyone."This is Dr. Janov’s opus magnum, a revolutionary work in every sense of the word. It may help to change the practice of psychotherapy as we know it, and above it, how we give birth today; the shoulds and should nots. It explains in detail how early trauma and adversity can have lifelong consequences and result in serious afflictions from cancer to diabetes. It can have monumental implications for medical practice, as well, and points to how we can rear healthy children.

Sex and the Subconscious

Here Dr Janov explores how trauma and lack of love stand in the way of millions of people as they try and experience sexual pleasure in life. "It is my impression that once we take a symptom - a sex problem - as THE problem and attempt to treat it as apart from the rest of us, we have a prescription for failure. Sex is embedded into our bodies and our physiology; it has to seen in context not as some alien event to be done to. Even the most recalcitrant sex problems can be well treated once we learn their historical origins. They are not really mysteries Having treated so many sex problems I now want to share what I have learned with you."

Books by Dr. Janov

The Janov Solution(Aug 2007) indicates that is almost impossible to eradicate deep depression without plunging into the depths of the unconscious where the basis of it all lies. Dr. Janov has found a way to investigate the deep brain system that provides the underpinnings of depression. He has a system to eradicate the pernicious imprinted memories that cause us to be helpless and hopeless in adult life.

Primal Healing(Oct 2006) is Dr. Janov's magnum opus, the culmination of decades of clinical observation and research. Here he melds current research in biology and neurology with his clinical work to produce a definitive thesis regarding how any psychotherapy that uses words as the predominant mode of therapy cannot make profound change.

The Biology of love (Mar 2000) Drawing on years of experience with thousands of patients and a growing body of evidence in neurophysiology, human biology and psychology, Dr. Janov shows how love or the lack of it affects not only our sense of psychological well-being but our physical health and our personalities as well.

Why You Get Sick - How You Get Well (Aug 1996) The culmination of over a decade of research and writing, Why You Get Sick - How You Get Well reveals the hidden forces of the unconscious that conspire against the human system, making us sick emotionally and physically.